College Football: Canadian import Juwan Brescacin a quick learner for Huskies

Saturday

Dec 21, 2013 at 11:32 AMDec 21, 2013 at 11:32 AM

By Matt TrowbridgeThe Journal-Standard

Juwan Brescacin looked like Randy Moss with a leaping one-handed finger-tip touchdown catch in the Mid-American Conference title game.

He always wanted to look like Randy Moss.

"When I was 6, I would throw the football with my dad and every time I would be Randy Moss," Brescacin said. "My dad didn't like that, because he was a Cowboys fan."

No. 24 Northern Illinois sure likes it, though. As a redshirt freshman, Brescacin led NIU with an average of 20.3 yards per catch on his 11 receptions. This year, the sophomore was second in average (15.6 yards to Da'Ron Brown's 16.4) and touchdowns (five) and third in yards (469) for the Huskies (12-1).

Not bad for a former Canadian basketball player.

"This is only his fifth year of playing football," NIU coach Rod Carey said. "He just immersed himself in it. It took him a little while to get accustomed to the physicality of it, but now that he has, the sky is the limit for him.

"His ability is as good as anybody that we have on our team or we play against. His hands are bigger than your head. That makes it easy to catch the ball. And he's an athlete. Basketball really helps with your body control."

The 6-foot-4, 219-pound Brescacin has Randy Moss-type size, but he was mostly a basketball player until he left Canada. Those days of tossing the football with his dad were in Mississauga, Ontario, When he did play football, it was only for one year, and it wasn't at receiver.

"I wanted to be a receiver, but I was the quarterback in 10th grade," Brescacin said. "I was the most athletic kid, and they always put the most athletic kid at quarterback.

"I have some film on that. I was pretty good."

Brescacin's high school point guard left Mississauga for Culver Military Academy, a prep school in Culver, Ind. Brescacin followed him.

"I thought it was a great opportunity to try something new," he said.

Make that try two new things. Culver officials asked him to play football, too.

"I ended up liking it. I always wanted to be a wide receiver before, but never had the chance. When I finally got the opportunity, I thought I could be good at it. I was big. I could catch. And I was athletic."

He was great at it. Brescacin broke all of Culver's career receiving records in two years, and Jerry Kill recruited him hard for NIU. Kill then left to become Minnesota's head coach and continued to recruit Brescacin until finally choosing another receiver. Brescacin had offers from other MAC teams, but they all wanted him to "gray shirt" and pay his own way as a freshman. Dave Doeren, Kill's successor before leaving for North Carolina State at the end of last season, brought Brescacin to NIU.

"NIU stuck with me the whole way," Brescacin said. "I had a bunch of MAC schools looking at me, but they didn't want to take the time to develop me."

It took Brescacin awhile to get used to Division I football.

"I thought I was pretty physical at basketball," he said, "but football is different. I was running with people who were older than me and stronger than me and a lot faster than me, but as the years went on, I adjusted. I've still got a long ways to go, but I've come a long way."

As NIU gets ready to play Utah State (8-5) in the Poinsettia Bowl on Thursday, Brescacin looms as a player to watch. He has had a knack for playing his best in NIU's biggest games. He led the Huskies with six catches for 71 yards in their MAC title game loss. And he set career highs with eight catches for 121 yards in the win over Toledo that clinched the MAC West title.

And he may just be getting started.

"He's really gifted," NIU quarterback Jordan Lynch said. "If he's double-teamed, I will still throw him up the ball. He gives defenses matchup problems. You can't just single cover that kid because when he goes up, he's hungry for the ball.